Why your mom should be on Facebook

My mom joined Facebook about 6 months ago. I'd like to say that I helped her into the land of Web 2.0, but really she joined out of necessity. My younger brother was in his senior year of college and notoriously terrible about returning phone calls. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you'd get a text message from him (which we also had to teach mom how to do). One day I showed her my FB page and she saw that my brother had recently uploaded some new pictures about his weekend adventures, and that he had updated his status with what he was up to just an hour previously.

That's when the light bulb went off. "Now I can finally keep track of my kids," she said. (Note, we're all adults now, but keeping tabs on your progeny seems to be one of those lifelong pursuits for most moms.)

Mom made herself a profile and added a few friends: my siblings, my cousin, a few of my old high school friends that she knew. A few weeks later, she mentioned it to someone at her work... they were also using Facebook to keep up with their kids who were a few cities or states away. So, she became friends with them as well... and it sort of gained momentum from there.

Now my mom has 140+ friends, and she updates her status daily (at least). I love getting little notes from her throughout the week... it sort of reminds of when she used to put notes into my lunch box when I was a kid just saying "Have a great day, honey."

Also, since my mom doesn't have a digital camera (we're still working on that new piece of technology), I taught her how to scan in pictures this weekend and upload them to her FB account. She just recently put up a never-before-seen pic of her and my dad when they were first dating along with a few adorable baby pics of herself. Both are a nice reminder to me that my mom's got this whole other life that doesn't (though I'm loath to admit it) revolve around me. Sort of eye opening, you know?

While there might be a few downsides to friending your mom on Facebook, like the fact that your mom now has constant access to your current relationship status or those not-so-wholesome pics that your BFF put up from New Year's Eve, I've gotta say, it's worth it for me.

Why not give it a try and teach the 'rents how to use FB? I mean, the worst that can happen is that you have to de-friend them. You don't think your mom would take that the wrong way, do you?

Check out this class for more on getting started with Facebook!